1. Properties

Gold was undoubtedly the first metal worked by man. As early as the Neolithic period, in the Middle East, it was used for decoration and jewelry. Its history is punctuated by plunder and suffering. The Achaemenid Persians plundered the treasure of Croesus seven centuries before our era, and their gold reserves were plundered in turn in the 4th century by Alexander the Great, who put huge quantities of gold on the market for the time. This facilitated trade and led to real economic prosperity. The Romans in turn plundered the Hellenistic kingdoms and mined the gold of Gaul, the Iberian Peninsula and Dacia. But the first discoveries of large quantities of gold date back to the 15th and 16th centuries, and are due to the destruction of the Amerindian empires by the Conquistadores. In the 18th century, gold rushes began in Brazil, in 1721 in...